'I’ve never cared about being indie or cool': Shaun Ryder talks ahead of Happy Mondays show in Birmingham

Happy Mondays lived a chaotic sex’n’drugs’n’rock’n’roll lifestyle as they put Madchester on the map.

Shaun Ryder and Bez blew many young minds with tracks like Kinky Afro, Step On, Wrote For Luck and Loose Fit in their late 80s, early 90s heyday.

They are back on the road to cement their status as one of Britain’s most treasured bands with a marathon headline tour, and reach Birmingham Institute tomorrow.

Ryder has been very open about his drug-fuelled rise to stardom.

“I don’t really regret anything about my youth,” he says. “I was never an intravenous-drug user and I didn’t have to make the same choices a lot of my friends had to make.

“I never had to choose between heroin and paying my bills. I never had to choose between drugs and food or clothes or toothpaste. I was lucky.”

These days, he’s more interested in looking after his young family than raving. He goes straight home after shows and has been clean for many years, having cycled long distances in his successful battle to get off drugs.

“I think I’m a really good dad,” he continues. “This time around anyway. I’ve got kids who are hitting 30. I was a kid having kids when I had them, and I said things and let them see things that I shouldn’t have. But since I started again – I’ve now got a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old – I have become a proper dad. The idea of drugs or that kind of lifestyle isn’t something that comes anywhere near them. We don’t even have any booze in our house. We won’t let our kids go to a children’s party if it’s in a pub.”

Ryder was motivated by a desire to break out of the poverty that he knew in Manchester. He had no interest in his band being cool; he just wanted to write great tunes, have a good time and earn an honest living. There were plenty of difficulties along the way, but he’s entered a new phase of his career where he can enjoy the stability that success brings while still getting his kicks on stage.

“I’ve never cared about being indie or cool. I wanted to be on Top of the Pops.

“Go back to the mid-80s, The Mondays were talking to Piers Morgan. None of the other bands in the scene were doing that because it wasn’t cool, but we were just so desperate not to have to go get a job in McDonald’s.

“I was desperate not to live in poverty. It’s why I ended up doing I’m a Celebrity in 2010. I’d seen what Big Brother had done for Bez. A man who was previously best known for playing the maracas and dancing on stage had suddenly become the most famous man in Manchester, if not the country. I wanted some of that.”

He’s grateful that he’s still allowed to get away with it and can stay young by playing songs with Happy Monday or his other band, Black Grape. The responsibilities of parenthood have brought about change for the better and he’s glad to be on the straight and narrow with a happy family to go home to after entertaining his fans.

“Men don’t have to grow up like women do. Women are expected to grow up with every year that passes. Men can get away with being kids until they’re at least 40 – I did. I was still living the same lifestyle I had been when I was 16.”. But I wasn’t a kid any more. The stuff I’d done when I was younger – drugs – had to go. My kids were getting older. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass them.”